Apprentices 01: A Promise Made
by Higuchimon
Summary: Haou does not spare children for being children. He may spare them to create future warriros for himself, however. These future warriors aren't entirely sold on the idea.


**Title:** A Promise Made  
 **Characters:** Kyle, Nero|| **Pairs:** N/A  
 **Words:** 973/973|| **Chapters:** 1/1  
 **Genre:** Drama|| **Rated:** G  
 **Challenges:** Diversity Writing: alternate/divergent timelines: B16, 3rd person POV; Easter Egg Basket Advent 2016, day #12, 2 characters who didn't meet in canon with a common goal  
 **Notes:** Technically could be canon but let's say it's a small alternate/divergent timeline, wherein two minor characters... well, read the story?  
 **Summary:** Haou does not spare children for being children. He may spare them to create future warriros for himself, however. These future warriors aren't entirely sold on the idea.

* * *

Kyle looked up when the door opened, expecting either a meal – was it mealtime? He couldn't tell – or perhaps one of his teachers. Instead, a boy a little younger than he was pushed into the room and the door closed behind him, the bar falling over it a heartbeat later.

The newcomer stumbled, quivering before he caught himself, looking up to meet Kyle's eyes. He stepped backward, eyes darting from one side to the other.

"I won't hurt you," Kyle murmured, not moving. "I'm not like them." He wasn't going to say _him_. Mentioning Haou in any form wasn't something he wanted to risk.

A large pair of eyes looked up towards him again. The stranger swallowed briefly before he steadied himself.

"W-who are you?" The new arrival murmured. "What are you doing here?"

Kyle offered a bit of a smile. He needed to be strong. Captain Freed had told him that. He had to believe it. The options weren't ones that he would enjoy.

"My name's Kyle. What's yours?" He knew he hadn't answered the other question. He didn't think he wanted to.

"N-nero." The boy swallowed, casting a small glance behind himself. "My grandpa...they… they did something to him."

Kyle pressed his lips together. He could guess what had been done. He'd seen it happen too many times since his own capture. He tried to speak softly.

"I'm sorry." He wished he could say something else, but the words slipped away too quickly.

Nero fidgeted a bit more before he glanced at the stone bench on the opposite side of the room. Kyle nodded; if he wanted to sit there, that was fine with him.

"I thought everything was going to be all right," Nero said, settling on the bench and staring downward. "We met duelists. _Real duelists_." He glanced up, eyes all but glowing with delight. "They were going to help us. They were going to find where H-haou was." His voice trembled at the title. Kyle didn't blame him at all.

"And Haou found them first?"

Nero shook his head. "I don't know. We never saw them again. But the army came and crushed our village." Again his voice shook. "Grandpa..."

Kyle started to reach toward him then drew his hand back. "They did the same thing to us. We found a place we could stay safe from the Dark World monsters." He stared down, remembering those few brief weeks where everything seemed so safe. Even without Captain Freed or his father there, he'd been happy. He'd had his sister and his friends.

Nero glanced toward him, a touch more interested as his fear faded. Kyle kept on going. "But then Haou's armies struck." His fingers clenched harder. "They ruined everything. They destroyed our new home. They killed almost all of us."

His throat began to close, tears he'd thought he'd worked through tightening there. "They took a few of us captive. Me. My sister. A few others."

"What happened to them?" Nero wondered. Kyle drew up something that might well have been a smile, or something of the sort. It didn't make him feel very happy.

"I'm not sure about the others. I think some of them were killed later." That was what Haou did. He killed people. That twisted Kyle's heart deeper and harder than anything else. "But my sister – Gina – she was given to Chaos Hunter. I don't know what they're doing."

He'd tried to see Gina since then, but he hadn't had much luck. Chaos Hunter served Haou but no one knew everything that she did.

Kyle swallowed, dropping his gaze for a few moments. "Haou decided I wasn't _good enough_ to die for whatever it is that he's doing. So he's having me taught to duel."

He'd wanted to be a warrior all of his life, even before they came here to this world where the loss of a duel meant death itself. Being a warrior wasn't what he'd thought it was just months earlier. Being _Haou's_ warrior meant that he would have to kill and kill and kill.

And he no longer had a choice in the matter.

Nero nodded slowly. "He told me the same thing. Not good enough to die yet so he wants me to learn to duel." He settled himself more firmly on the bench. "My grandpa didn't want me to duel. He was worried about people thinking I was a warrior."

Kyle nodded as well. "I wanted to protect the people we had left. Captain Freed wanted that too."

Nero glanced up a bit. "Captain Freed?"

"He was the leader of the Steel Knight Army. They fought Brron the Mad King." Kyle shivered at those memories and others. Being cornered by Scarr. The brown-eyed hero who rushed to save him…

 _Where is he?_ Kyle could only hope that Juudai would turn up one day. He'd waited for so long.

And yet somehow, whenever Haou spoke, Kyle imagined that his voice sounded far too similar to Juudai's. He told himself repeatedly that it was just his imagination. Juudai wasn't anything like Haou. Juudai _couldn't_ be like Haou.

But he'd never seen Haou with his visor lifted. He'd never seen Haou for more than a few minutes at a time and always at a distance.

 _Just your imagination._ He had to keep reminding himself of that.

"How old are you?" Kyle asked. Nero looked like he wasn't much older than nine or ten, at least in his opinion.

"Ten. What about you?"

"Eleven." Kyle made up his mind. "We'll be all right, Nero. I promise." He would keep that promise, no matter what. Even if it meant that he had to kill the people they dueled against. He wasn't going to like it. But he didn't have to like it to do it.

He wasn't going to be like Haou.

* * *

 **The End**

 **Notes:** To refresh you, Kyle was the boy Juudai saved when he dueled Scarr and Nero was the boy Jim and O'Brien saved when they dueled Battle Footballer. It was implied Nero died in Haou's attack on the village not long after that, but I wondered "what if" and here we go. I may write more with these two at a later date.


End file.
